Don't buy bullets from Monte Cook

Grazzt · Jul 24, 2004

Wow! Thread hijack in the second post.

Sado · Jul 24, 2004

*tucks tail between legs slightly*
Sorry, I got my terms mixed up. Hollow points expand, not explode. Now I look like a bit of an ass, but I'm the first to admit when I'm wrong. I was thinking of expanding bullets, not exploding.

AFAIK there are no bullets with actual explosives in them. Frangible is the term to describe bullets that fragment once inside the target, such as glasers, but hollowpoints do not fall into this category.

Olgar Shiverstone · Jul 24, 2004

S'mon said:
Re FMJ rounds - according to some discussions of ballistics & wounds I read (there was a nice one in GDW's Fire Fusion & Steel), all bullets tumble a lot when entering solid matter, so FMJ rifle rounds' wound trail & thus damage is proportional more to the bullet's length x diameter than to its cross-sectional area; this is the main reason (long) rifle bullets are much more damaging than (shorter) pistol rounds of similar mass & velocity.

I wouldn't rely on gaming materiel for firearms information

L/D is a factor in the round's initial yaw on impacting soft tissue, but so is the yaw cycle of the round (which is a function of both projectile configuration and spin rate). The velocity of the round is more significant however -- and that's really why rifle-launched projectiles are so much more damaging than pistol launched ones.

The size of the temporary and permanent wound cavities have a lot to do with three things: how soon the bullet yaws on entering tissue, how much it yaws, and how much it fragments (all bullets fragment to some degree on other depending on how fast they impact, whether designed to or not). All three of those factors are influenced by velocity. What we're finding, particularly with our standard M855 (5.56mm ball) round is that higher velocity means earlier yaw, more yaw, and greater fragmentation => bigger wound cavity => more lethal.

You're right, though, on the hollowpoint. Hollow-point ammunition is designed to rapidly expand (rather than explode, fragment, or yaw) on impact, to rapidly dissipate energy into the target. It works quite well, but like purpose-designed frangible ammo, polymer-tipped ammo, an dthe like, the military is barred from their use by the Geneva convention.

There's other sexy stuff our there -- shaped charges have been mentioned, like 40mm HEDP, and there are advanced things like reactive material (.50 KICM, which reacts -- looks like an explosion, but isn't caused by HE -- after penetrating armor) or the Mk211 .50 armor-piercing incendiary round, but those are primarily designed for anti-materiel rather than anti-personnel use. (Hence the myth: "I was shooting at his equipment, officer, I swear").

Use whatever you like in your gaming, though. Exploding hollowpoints? Sure!

- Olgar (Small Arms Division Chief, US Army Infantry Center)

JediSoth · Jul 24, 2004

Mulkhoran said:
I believe the weapon of choice you're referring to, Scaramanga, is commonly referred to as a "wad cutter".

A wadcutter is actually a flat-nosed target round. It is shaped like a cylinder, fairly low powered and used because it makes very nice little holes in the target, almost like a hole punch. I've mainly seen them sold for .38s.

The frangible bullets, such as Glaser safety slugs, are designed for home defense to minimize over-penetration. They break apart upon hitting solid objects to disappate the energy more rapidly.

Hollow-points are designed to mushroom upon impact, creating a large wound cavity. Used often in hunting applications, they make good personal defense rounds as well, as they don't have a tendancy to over-penetrate.

Ball ammunition, aka full metal jacket, can shoot through walls, people, car doors (actually a lot of bullets will go through a car door, so Morpheus and Trinity should have been swiss cheese during the freeway chase in The Matrix: Reloaded). They're used for target practice and military applications. The copper jacket over the lead tends to minimize fouling of the barrel, allow the weapon to be fired more between cleanings.

Then you have other types of ammo, less commonly encountered for modern firearms, like round nose lead (used in a lot of "cowboy" calibers, like .45 LC), steel jacketed rounds (military surplus ball ammo from WWII, or behind the Iron Curtain, indoor ranges hate it 'cause it takes divots out of their backstops), tracers, and armor piercing.

Of course, I could go on and on, but I don't want anyone to think I'm a gun nut.

JediSoth

S'mon · Jul 24, 2004

Olgar Shiverstone said:
I wouldn't rely on gaming materiel for firearms information

The FFS guys at GDW (Twilight 2000 et al) clearly were gun nuts & actually did some research though, I'm not talking R Talsorian here...

Dogbrain · Jul 24, 2004

As long as he doesn't start talking about NND AP attacks, he's still an okay game designer.

Sanackranib · Jul 24, 2004

Mulkhoran said:
...Next time: White Phosphorus, or what to do when OH MY GOD IT WON'T GO OUT MY EYES MY EYES.

I wondered just how long it would be til we had a "whillie peeter' reference. anything that burns under water is some nasty stuff!

Hatchling Dragon · Jul 24, 2004

Sanackranib said:
I wondered just how long it would be til we had a "whillie peeter' reference. anything that burns under water is some nasty stuff!

The bit that scares me acutaly is the fact(?) that the WP grenades were designated as a smoke grenade, and weren't intended as offensive weapons. Please, someone correct me if I'm wrong. I'm going on an old book I read long ago in Highschool that referred to weapons of Viet Nam. It was also mentioned that naturaly some people used the WP's offensively, in violation of the rules.

Hatchling Dragon